Spectrum of breast lesions and cyto- histopathological correlation - A retrospective study in a teaching institution in North Malabar

Introduction: Breast carcinoma is the most common malignancy in women. Fine needle aspiration Cytology (FNAC) is an important component of triple approach for diagnosing breast lesions and is highly sensitive, specific, rapid and easy to perform. FNAC has an important role in the preoperative evaluation of breast lesions and deciding treatment. Materials and Methods: The present study was carried out among 350 patients who presented to a tertiary care hospital in North Malabar during a 4 year period from June 2013- June 2017. All cases that presented with breast lump were evaluated with FNAC and the lesions were categorised as C1- C5 as per National Health Service Breast screening programme (NHSBSP) reporting criteria. In 240 cases cytohistopathological correlation was obtained and diagnostic accuracy of FNAC was determined. Aims: To study the spectrum of benign and malignant breast lesions and the efficacy of FNAC as a diagnostic tool by correlating with histopathological findings. Results: Statistical analysis showed that sensitivity of FNAC was 99.46% in benign lesions and 96.2 % in malignant lesions. The specificity and positive predictive value of malignant lesions were 99.46% and 98.07% respectively and that of benign lesions were 96.2% and 98.93% respectively. Conclusions: FNAC serves as a rapid and reliable tool for evaluation of breast lumps with high sensitivity and specificity. However, grey zone lesions of breast which shows atypical / suspicious morphology needs confirmation by biopsy.